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Four rescued after raft hits snag on Snoqualmie River

Four rafters from outside the Valley were rescued from the Snoqualmie River on Thursday, Aug. 4.

The group’s raft deflated on a snag around 6:30 p.m. near the 34900 block of David Powell Road, outside Fall City.

“It’s a pretty bad area,” said Lt. Patrick Le Doux of the Fall City Fire Department. “We’ve been fishing a lot of people out of there this year.”

When the group’s inflatable raft was punctured on a snag, one of the four called 9-1-1 with a cell phone. The call came in at 5:26 p.m. Fire Departments from Fall City, Snoqualmie and Duvall, responded, as well as Eastside Fire and Rescue, and the King County Sheriff’s Department’s Marine Patrol.

The rafters weren’t sure of their location, so rescuers spent some time trying to locate the group. LeDoux said they were using a 9-1-1 tracking service to find them, but the caller’s phone soon stopped working.

“We basically had to spread out to find them,” LeDoux said. From the boat launch near the Raging River confluence, they sent a boat upstream and another downstream. The upstream crew found the rafters stuck in a spot in the river, opposite the snag and not far downstream from it. Two were wearing life-vests.

Rescuers pulled the four rafters from the river around 6:45 p.m. None of them were injured.

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